I’m the West Coast representative for Campus Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum. I was a political columnist for SFGate.com (San Francisco Chronicle online) from 2004-2008. I've written for the Algemeiner, Daily Caller, Washington Examiner, Independent Journal Review, American Thinker, FrontPage Magazine, Jihad Watch, Family Security Matters, Accuracy In Media, Newsbusters, Israel National News, Jewish Press, J-The Jewish News Weekly of Northern California, and many others.

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Of Penguins and "Climate Change"

It seems that fossils of giant penguins with long, spear-like bills (now there's a scary thought) have been found in Peru, disproving scientists' formerly held belief that prehistoric penguins lived only in colder climes. According to an article in the Los Angeles Times:

"These discoveries tell us about the more complex relationship between penguin evolution and climate change," said study coauthor Sara Bertelli, a paleontologist at the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles.

The fossil penguins lived 30 million to 40 million years ago, just as the planet was beginning a cooling phase. The climate near the equator stayed warm the longest, with the temperature in Peru hovering around 79 degrees.

{snip}

One factor that may have allowed temperature-sensitive penguins to migrate toward warmer climates was the separation of Antarctica from other continents about 40 million years ago. New ocean currents developed, bringing cold, nutrient-rich water northward. Modern warm-weather penguins, such as the Galapagos penguin, still rely on these cold currents for their survival.

For some reason, these scientists are under the impression that the climate changes over time and penguins, among other creatures, adapt. I guess they haven't heard about "climate change," the catastrophic process that, according to Al Gore and Co., is going to take us all down any minute now. Apparently, the penguins will be the last ones standing.

Anonymous said...Now if those penguins can just figure out how to adjust to a drastic climate change in 30 or 40 years instead of millions, then everything's a-ok.

It still shocks me that there can be people as ignorant as you, anonymous. Do you really believe the absurd lie that there will be "drastic climate change" in the next 30 years? What absolute balderdash.

Tell me, anonymous: How much has the global temperature risen over the last century, since 1900?

Hmm?

That's right -- one-third of one degree!

Why, that means, in three hundred years, at this rate, it will have gone up one entire degree!

Now, to a geologist, that's a fast change. But to people like you and me, and every other human and animal (including penguins), it's imperceptible over the span of one lifetime.

So yes, the penguins -- and every other animal -- will adapt as a group to the incremental change over the centuries, as all species have done since the beginning of life on Earth.

There's a name for this process -- it's called evolution. Nothing ever stays the same.

Anonymous, you've been sold a bill of good by a mass movement of charlatans. Global warming is very minor; man's contribution to it is bordering on the trivial; and to whatever extent man does contribute to it, 90% of that is coming from places like China, Indonesia and India, not the developed world; and most importantly, there's no evidence whatsoever that over the upcoming centuries, global warming will be "bad" for life on Earth.

While I strongly agree that human-caused contributions have had a minor cause in climatic change, you are very wrong about climatic change as being "minor." Look around. Look at the weather globally. The midwest is under water, storms in the west are more severe than ever, and globally things are every bit as severe. Wake up. Everyone wake up. Climatic SHIFT is happening now and ain't anybody gonna be able to stop the train! So, you all better learn to adapt.

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I’m the West Coast representative for Campus Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum. I was a political columnist for SFGate.com (San Francisco Chronicle online) from 2004-2008. I've written for the Algemeiner, Daily Caller, Washington Examiner, Independent Journal Review, American Thinker, FrontPage Magazine, Jihad Watch, Family Security Matters, Accuracy In Media, Newsbusters, Israel National News, Jewish Press, J-The Jewish News Weekly of Northern California, and many others.